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Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Having concluded their investigations, Indonesian police have now named Jakarta’s ethnic Chinese Christian Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama a suspect in a blasphemy case. Speaking to a press conference on Wednesday 16 November, the head of the National Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim), Comr. Gen. Ari Dono, confirmed: “Although there are different opinions among police investigators, most agreed that the case should be settled in an open trial.”

Now that Ahok has been named, Islamic fundamentalists are demanding he be arrested and incarcerated, as is normally the case with blasphemy suspects in Indonesia. Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) spokesperson Munarman told the Jakarta Post: “Because Ahok still runs free, we have decided to stage another protest. Ahok should be jailed, it is the legal procedure. All suspects charged under Article 156 (a) of the Criminal Code in Indonesia’s history are always imprisoned.” The next protest is slated for Friday 2 December.

As tensions soar, debate swirls around whether the charge is political or religious. Ahok himself is certain he is not guilty of blasphemy. Not wanting to blame Islam, he maintains the charge is purely political and is confident that any testing of the charge will see him acquitted. Meanwhile, Indonesia's fundamentalist Islamic clerics are certain Ahok has indeed blasphemed, giving them exactly what they were looking for: a means of removing him from the gubernatorial race.

As for Ahok’s political opponents, they are merely riding the wave, exploiting Islamist outrage for their own benefit.

POLITICS

On 15 February 2017, Jakartans will go to the polls to elect a new governor. The contenders were announced on 24 September. It will be a three-way race pitting incumbent Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama and Deputy Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat against the Anies Baswedan – Sandiaga Uno and Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono – Sylviana Murni tickets. Analysts are expecting a two-round contest.

•Ahok, the early favourite and frontrunner, is backed by Megawati Soekarnoputri’s Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
•Anies Baswedan, the former culture and education minister, is backed by Lieutenant General Prabowo Subianto’s Gerindra Party and the Islamist Prosperous Justice Party (PKS).
•Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono is backed by former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s (i.e. his father’s) Democratic Party, the National Mandate Party (PAN), the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the United Development Party (PPP).

This is a high stakes election. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has even commented that it “feels like a presidential election”. In a piece entitled “Not Just Another Election” (Asian Studies Association of Australia, 6 Oct 2016) Dr. Dirk Tomsa comments: “The deep involvement of Jakarta’s most powerful party leaders in the nomination process certainly indicates that this election has implications for the national level, not least the 2019 presidential election. But apart from reorganising power and patronage in the capital, the Jakarta poll will also yield critical insights into other aspects of electoral politics in Indonesia, especially the nature of campaigning and voter mobilisation and, given Ahok’s background as a Christian ethnic Chinese, the salience of ethnic and religious sentiments among the Indonesian electorate.”

Indonesia’s fundamentalist Muslims have long opposed Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama. Elected as deputy governor in 2012, running with Joko Widodo (“Jokowi”), Ahok ascended to the governorship in the wake of Jokowi’s 2014 election to the presidency. In a foretaste of things to come, Jakarta’s Islamic hardliners – led by the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) – were quick to protest, vowing to resist the “kafir” (unclean), “infidel”, “devil” governor.

With early polls showing Ahok the clear frontrunner, Islamic fundamentalist clerics moved quickly to remind Muslims that it is a sin for Muslims to vote for non-Muslims, citing verses such as Sura 5:51 ‘. . . Do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies [awliya : allies / friends / guardians / leaders] . . .’ And as linguist and Islam expert, the Reverend Dr Mark Durie notes, “In Indonesian translations of the verse 5:51 is rendered ‘do not take Jews and Christians as your leaders (pemimpin-pemimpinmu)’.”

In a commentary piece entitled, “Violent Protests in Indonesia Blow an Ill Will for Religious Tolerance” (10 Nov), Durie refers to “Ibn Kathir, an authoritative medieval commentator on the Qur’an, [who] explained this verse as follows: Allah forbids his believing servants from having Jews and Christians as allies or patrons, because they are the enemies of Islam and its people, may Allah curse them.” According to Durie, Ibn Kathir makes it clear that the only valid law is Islamic Sharia Law; that only a Muslim can rule over Muslims; and that anyone who looks to an infidel for political or legal direction should be considered an infidel – an apostate.

'Believers should not choose a non-Muslim as their leader,' cleric Alwi Wahid.

As tensions escalated, an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) News film crew led by Indonesian correspondent Samantha Hawley visited the Al Furqon mosque in central Jakarta. Cleric Alwi Wahid’s message was clear: “Be careful on the judgement day,” he preached. “God will ask you, why did you choose the infidel as the leader, while I have warned you not to. Believers should not choose a non-Muslim as their leader,” he said before warning the congregation that there would be “bad consequences” for those who vote for a non-Muslim.

The believers, said Hawley, seemed convinced. “I refuse to vote for Ahok,” one man told the ABC. “I am a Muslim and Ahok is an infidel, that’s it.”

Mohammad Siddik from the Indonesian Supreme Council for Islamic Propagation told Hawely: “Muslims call the people not to vote for Ahok because we are also guided by our faith, by the Koran.” He also warned that a non-Muslim being elected to the governorship could lead to instability.

AHOK’S ‘BLASPHEMY’

Unsurprisingly, the feisty, straight-talking Ahok eventually responded. In a speech to city officials on 27 September, Ahok made light of the clerics’ objections, saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, you don’t have to vote for me because you’ve been lied to [or fooled] with Surat Almaidah 51 [Sura 5:51] and the like. That’s your right. If you feel you can’t vote for me because you fear you’ll go to hell, because you’ve been lied to [or fooled], no worries. That’s your personal right. These programs will go forward. So you don’t have to feel uncomfortable. Follow your conscience, you don’t have to vote for Ahok” (translation by Sidney Jones).
By 5 October, video footage of the speech had gone viral on youtube and Islamic fundamentalists were claiming that Ahok had blasphemed against the Qur’an and the clerics.

On 10 October, Ahok apologised “to all Muslims and anyone who felt offended”, saying it was not his intention to slight Islam or the Qur’an. But it was in vain. Having taken up the Sharia cudgel of anti-blasphemy, his opponents were not about to put it down.

On 1 November, the Lowy Institute published an important piece by Indonesia expert Sidney Jones. In her article entitled, “Why Indonesian extremists are gaining ground,” Jones slams Indonesia’s “spineless political leaders [who] have allowed extremists to seize the momentum and foment religious hatred against the governor”. She explains how the anti-Ahok campaign “brings together violent extremists, moralist thugs and powerful political interests. And because of the latter, no one dares challenge it.” She laments that conservative Muslim opposition to Ahok is no longer merely “noise in the political background” but a serious threat to Indonesian unity and security. She wonders why no-one – not the President nor Vice-President nor any pluralist politician – said “Let’s stop this in it tracks”, or did anything to try to cool tempers or even defend the constitution.

On 11 October, the day after Ahok apologised, the Indonesia Ulama Council (MUI) – Indonesia’s top Muslim clerical body – held a meeting in which they determined that Ahok had indeed committed blasphemy and should be prosecuted.

Jones elaborates:
“In a statement to the media, the MUI said:
•Surah al-Maidah [Qur’an, chapter 5] explicitly forbids non-Muslims from becoming leaders.
•Based on this surah, ulama are obliged to convey to all Muslims that it is obligatory to choose a Muslims leader.
•Every Muslim must understand the truth of this surah as a guideline for choosing leaders.
•To say that the prohibition against making non-Muslims leaders is a lie constitutes an insult to the Qur’an.
•To say that ulama who use Surah al-Maidah as their evidence for forbidding non-Muslims from becoming leaders are liars constitutes blasphemy toward ulama and the Muslim community.”

Human Rights Watch campaigner Andreas Harsono, told The Australian’s, Amanda Hodge, that he fears the country’s blasphemy laws have proved such an effective political tool that they will be used more frequently. “I think by next February Ahok will be detained,” said Harsono. “I don’t think even the political ¬forces that support Ahok can turn this around. I hope I am wrong.”

Speaking to Kate Lamb of The Guardian, Harsono said: “I have studied more than 200 blasphemy cases in Indonesia since it was written by President Sukarno in 1965. Over this 50-year period I think there was only one case where the suspect was acquitted. I don’t think Ahok can survive this prosecution, he is very likely to end up in jail.”

According to Horsono, a newspaper editor was acquitted of blasphemy in 1968, while in 2012, Alexander Aan, a 30-year-old civil servant from Sumatra, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison after he declared on his Facebook page he was an atheist.

As Hodge notes: “Indonesia had its chance to repeal its blasphemy laws — a legacy of the dying days of the Sukarno era. The late, liberal Muslim scholar and former president Abdurrahman Wahid led an unsuccessful 2009 petition of the Constitutional Court, arguing the laws violated the enshrined right to religious freedom. His daughter Yenny says he was motivated by the escalation of blasphemy charges under successor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono [SBY].

“The Setara Institute says 15 blasphemy cases were tried from 1965 to 1998. In SBY’s 10 years in power, from 2004 to 2014, some 51 cases were tried, with a 100 per cent conviction rate.”

Pitan Daslani, a senior political analyst for the Jakarta Globe writes (8 Nov): “Objectively, Ahok can only be punished if proven guilty according to Article 156A of the Criminal Code, which stipulates the parameters on defamation of religion. . .

“Article 156A of the Criminal Code prescribes a maximum five-year jail term for anyone who ‘utters feelings or commits acts intentionally that [a] contains enmity, misappropriation, or defamation of a religion’ and ‘[b] has the intention to prevent others from adhering to any religion that is based on belief in one God.’

“These two factors must be fulfilled to justify his perceived offense.”

Ever-popular; Ahok campaigns in Jatinegara, Tuesday 15 Nov.

While the situation is indeed dire, some political analysts believe Ahok could still manage to turn the situation around. “Of course,” surmise analysts at Coconuts Jakarta, “even if Ahok plays his cards perfectly, there is still the chance that he could lose in court and be found guilty of blasphemy, landing him in jail and almost certainly putting an end to his political career.

“But let’s not forget that Ahok is among the savviest politicians in all of Indonesia. Before he came to Jakarta, he was incredibly popular as the regent of East Belitung, a province with a much higher percentage of Muslims than Jakarta. With a heavily publicized trial, he will have a platform to not only defend himself but also essentially campaign to the whole of Jakarta and Indonesia on a nearly daily basis.

“His loose lips might have gotten him into this mess, but Ahok’s sharp tongue may yet get him out of it and ultimately win him the race.”

WATERSHED

Whatever the outcome, this is a watershed moment for Indonesia. Indonesia will either appease Islamists and further Islamisation OR resist Islamists and reject Islamisation.

At the very end of the ABC’s 7:30 Report video report, Samantha Hawley asks Abu Jibril, the leader of fundamentalist activist group Majelis Mujahidin, what he thinks of the idea that a Christian could one day be president of Indonesia?

“If Ahok does not get the punishment he deserves,” responds Jibril, “not according to the demands of Muslims, then Muslims will get angrier. And when they get angrier, we don’t know what will happen.”

One thing we do know is that Indonesian Islamists are receiving strong support from transnational Islamists. On 29 October, photographs appeared on social media of non-Indonesian and fully armed members of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, (previously known as the al-Qaeda’s al-Nusra Front, Syria) holding signs that read “Sentence Ahok or We Will Sentence Him with Bullets”, and of jihadists standing in front of a large wooden box labelled “Ahok’s Coffin”. And on 4 November, as Indonesian Islamists prepared to rally in the street of Jakarta, Islamic State used their messaging services to encourage their supporters to use the rally “to fan the flames of jihad” across the country.

Whatever the outcome of Ahok’s 'blasphemy', Indonesia will not be the same.

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Elizabeth Kendal is international religious liberty analyst and advocate. She serves as Director of Advocacy at Canberra-based Christian Faith and Freedom (CFF), and is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam at Melbourne School of Theology.

She has authored two books: Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today (Deror Books, Melbourne, Australia, Dec 2012) which offers a Biblical response to persecution and existential threat; and, After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East (Wipf and Stock, Eugene, OR, USA, June 2016).

Sunday, November 20, 2016

On Saturday 19 November, I addressed the annual national conference of the Australian Christian Nation Association (ACNA). The Sydney-based organisation works to raise awareness of Australia’s Christian heritage and to preserve the Christian values on which the nation was founded.

Yusuf Al-Qaradawi is the head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars and a leading scholar in the global Muslim Brotherhood movement. During an interview on Egyptian television in February 2013, he made a most incredible admission.

Defending Islam’s law mandating death for apostasy, Qaradawi said, “If they [Muslims] had gotten rid of the punishment [usually death] for apostasy, Islam would not exist today.”

His admission confirms what a Coptic missionary working in the Middle East once told me: “If there was ever true religious freedom in the Muslim world, it would not be long before there was barely a Muslim left.”

Islam is so philosophically weak that it can only retain its adherents through terror -- by threatening ‘death for apostasy’ and ‘death for blasphemy’.

Likewise, it is precisely because Islam is militarily weak that it resorts to terrorism. After all, what is a suicide bomber but “a poor man’s smart bomb”?

Of course, it has not always been this way; Islamic armies have not always been weaker than the non-Islamic armies.

For a thousand years – from the 7th to the 17th Century – Islam was militarily strong.

Sultan Mehmed II ridesinto Constantinople, 1453.

First it was the Arabs, who conquered the Arabian Pen, the Holy Land, Mesopotamia and Persia, north Africa and Spain. Then it was the Turks, who, after invading Anatolia in the 11th Century, moved into the Balkans, conquering the Slavic holy land of Kosovo in 1389 and Constantinople – the capital of Eastern Christianity – in 1453.

By the time the Turks had arrived at the Gates of Vienna in 1529, the armies of Islam had devoured three quarters of the Old Christian World.

Crusade historian Thomas Madden writes:

“When we think about the Middle Ages, it is easy to view Europe in light of what it became rather than what it was. The colossus of the medieval world was Islam, not Christendom. The Crusades are interesting largely because they were an attempt to counter that trend. But in five centuries of crusading, it was only the First Crusade that significantly rolled back the military progress of Islam. It was downhill from there. (. . .)

“By the 15th century, the Crusades were no longer errands of mercy for a distant people but desperate attempts of one of the last remnants of Christendom to survive. Europeans began to ponder the real possibility that Islam would finally achieve its aim of conquering the entire Christian world.

“(. . .) Of course, that is not what happened. But it very nearly did.”

The defeat of the Ottoman Turks at the Gates of Vienna in 1683 is generally regarded as the pivotal moment when, after a millennium of advance, a millennium of success, Islam was finally stopped in its tracks. Subsequently, Islamic military and imperialist power began to fade and crumble beneath the rising industrial, military, scientific, technological, economic and imperial power of energised, post-Reformation Europe.

Islam might have been in retreat and in decline, yet five times a day, day after day, year after year after year, the call to prayer continued to ring out. And while the call to prayer is both a statement of faith and a call to faith, it also holds out ONE promise. Can you pick it?Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest. Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest. I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship but Allah. I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship but Allah.Hasten to the Prayer, hasten to the Prayer.Hasten to success, hasten to success.Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest.There is none worthy of worship but Allah.

The promise is, come to Islam and you'll come to success – a success that is understood in purely worldly and material terms: prosperity and power.

As Palestinian-American Islamic philosopher Isma’il al-Faruqi explains, “Falah [success] – or positive achievement in space and time of the divine will – is the Islamic counterpart of Christian ‘deliverance’ and ‘redemption’.”

Islam and Christianity are NOT the same! They are, in fact, polar opposites.

Christianity teaches that humanity’s problem is sin, which separates us from God and results in eternal death. The only solution to which is forgiveness, which God provides through Jesus Christ. Through faith, the believer is rescued, saved, delivered – redeemed. Christians then are called to go into all the world and share the Good News of what God has done.

Islam, on the other hand, teaches that humanity’s problem is ignorance, the solution to which is guidance, which Allah provides in the Quran and through the example of Muhammad. Islam rejects the concept of original sin, and maintains that humanity does not need saving.
Rather: those who submit to Allah guidance are promised success.

For a 1000 years, Muslims were able to reach out and take what Allah had promised – success, power and privilege – because they had the military capabilities to do so.

From the 17th Century however, Islam went into retreat and in decline as an energised, post-Reformation Europe literally rode over its head.

For Muslims, this reversal of fortunes has been truly shocking – and indeed, totally unacceptable. The Islamic response has been two-fold:

(1) Islamic resistance. The 18th C, but especially the 19th C and into the early 20th C – was an era of especially bloody Islamic resistance as Muslims preferred to kill rather than accommodate those they believed were beneath them.

(2) Islamic Reformation. From the mid 18th C Islamic reformers such as al-Wahhab called Muslims to return to traditional, fundamentalist, pure Islam and strict Sharia observance. This, they maintained, was the only way to reverse Islam’s fortunes so that Islam might be successful once again.

Sayyid Qutb (1906 - 1966)

Naturally, the call for Islamic Reformation grew loader and more urgent after the crushing blow of WWI, the dissolution of Ottoman Empire, the abolition of the Caliphate, and the breakup of the Arab world under Western mandates. In the wake of these and other ‘catastrophes’, Islamic reformers such as Mawdudi and Sayyid Qutb called for Islamic Reformation, while stoking the fires of grievance and victimhood and railing against the West’s never ending “international crusaderism.”

And all the while, five times every day, from mosque minarets all around the world, muezzins continued to sound the call: “hasten to success, hasten to success”.

And all the while, across the Middle East, global post war trends such as rapid population growth and rapid urbanisation were converging with economic distress and poor governance to produce mass disaffection – a trend that was picked up by the fundamentalist, reforming clerics in the slums of Tehran, Riyadh, Cairo, Homs etc who posited:“Islam is the Solution.”Eventually, in 1979, mass disaffection converged with Islamic reformation to produce – Islamic Revolution.

A successful Islamic revolution in Iran saw power transferred from the US-allied Shah to fundamentalist Shi’ite clerics. Later the same year, an attempted Islamic revolution in Saudi Arabia, though it failed to overthrow the US-allied House of al-Saud, succeeded in that it empowered fundamentalist Wahhabi, Sunni clerics who now pull the strings in Saudi Arabia, albeit covertly from behind the benign facade of the US-allied House of al-Saud. Islamic reformation had shifted into overdrive – globally.

“Islamic expansion is back and with it, invasion, conquest and colonization, including predatory migration. Subjugation is back and with it, the repression and persecution of non-Muslims and the inequity and injustice of dhimmitude (subjugation) which includes the demand for jizya (tribute or protection money as mandated in the Qur’an in Sura 9:29). Sharia (Islamic law) is back and with it, barbaric, cruel and inhumane punishments, including death for blasphemers (be they in Pakistan or Paris) along with lashings, amputations, beheadings, crucifixions and burnings—all live-tweeted for our entertainment and edification. By July 2014 the Caliphate was back, and with it, the mass slaughter of men, the enslavement of women and children, ethnic-religious cleansing and even genocide.

“Islam is back, which means the sword is back above the necks not only of Christians but of all who will not yield—all who dare stand in the way of Islam’s success. None of what we are witnessing today is “unprecedented”, none of it!

ISIS in Raqqa, Syria.

“It is sobering to realize however, that the main reason Islam is back in the twenty-first Century is because, having forgotten history, having forgotten the threat of Islam, the West has sided with Islam, aided Islam, funded Islam, armed Islam, appeased Islam, romanticized Islam and protected Islam, all the while failing to confront the philosophical weakness of Islam, a weakness Islam counters through gross human rights abuses such as the cruel subjugation and persecution of unbelievers, denial of freedoms, and penalties such as death for blasphemy and death for apostasy.”

BUT – while Islam is back, it is still as yet militarily weak; not weaker than you and me, but weaker than any national army and any state that isn’t in chaos. And because Islam is military weak, it MUST fight asymmetrically.

Consequently, it is imperative that we understand how asymmetric conflict is prosecuted, not the least because we are integral to it.

ASYMMETRIC CONFLICT

An asymmetric conflict is one fought between unequal forces: one weak, one strong. It might be a case of persecuted, repressed or occupied peoples (weak) taking on their oppressive overlords (strong) in a struggle for liberty. On the other hand, it might be a case of separatists, usurpers or even terrorists (weak) taking on the state (strong) in a grab for power.

In all the examples listed above, the weak prevailed against the strong. In fact, it seems to be becoming increasingly difficult in this technological age, for a strong force to prevail against a weaker foe that has perfected the art of asymmetric warfare.

Traditionally, a weaker force would not pick a fight with a stronger force unless it believed it stood a fair chance of winning. That is because traditionally, the only alternative to winning was losing, which usually meant dying.

Today however, there is an alternative to winning or losing. Today, political mileage is up for grabs. Today, militarily weak groups like Hamas achieve their goals precisely by picking a fight they know they cannot win and then making political mileage out of being weak and getting clobbered!

Psychological Operations can be aimed at convincing the enemy not to fight – i.e. to go home (as the Vietcong did with the US in Vietnam) or convincing the enemy to surrender on its own turf (as Islam is doing in the West today).

Psychological Operations can also be aimed at securing military aid from an even stronger power – a superpower.

You might ask: Why would a strong democracy want to get involved in a conflict far away against a state that is no threat to them? Answer: they don’t – at least not unless there is something to gain from it. Any intervention must serve the superpower’s economic and/or geo-strategic interests; it has been this way since wars began.

However, in today’s world, no democratically elected leader will intervene in a foreign conflict if they fear it might cost them their political life. Consequently, before they can intervene, an elected government must first undertake a massive campaign to saturate the electorate with propaganda, so as to establish that the weak force (often Islamic jihadists) are worthy victims, and the stronger force (often a market competitor) is an evil regime.

What’s more, the development of internet technologies, mobile phones and social networking has made disseminating propaganda easier than ever.

We are drowning in propaganda.

Two of the most commonly used tactics that weak forces use to generate propaganda and establish narrative are the use of human shields, and the false flag operation.

Human Shields

When a weak force provokes the enemy from behind a line of unarmed civilians, they can be said to be exploiting human shields. The strong force must then decide whether it will withhold fire (so as to protect civilians), or return fire in which case civilian casualties are all but guaranteed. If they return fire, the “massacre” will then be reported, along with sensational (often staged) images, by eager, gullible journalists who accept the narrative unquestioningly in their rush for the exclusive scoop. The media disseminates the propaganda, and then, just as expected, a compassionate society will have an emotional response.

A “False Flag” operation is one in which the weaker force perpetrates an appalling attack that is then attributed to the enemy. Generally this means acquiring enemy uniforms and then brutally slaughtering disposable civilians while making sure there are plenty of observers, especially reporters who are desperate to be first with exclusive stories and sensational images. The Houla massacre and the sarin gas attack in Ghouta are two examples of False Flag operations in Syria.

German war correspondent Jugen Todenhofer calls it “massacre marketing” – saying (referring to rebel activity in Syria): “It is among the most disgusting things I have witnessed in an armed conflict”.

Houla Massacre (Syria, May 2012)Child survivor: the family (all dead) was Sunni and pro-government. The father was a retired Syrian soldier.To get into the house, the killers ('rebels')-- who 'had big bushy beards and shaved heads' (i.e. takfiri / Salafi-style) -- claimed (falsely) to be shabiha (pro-government militia).

Terrorism

Terrorism is a Psychological Operation (PSYOP): a weapon of the weak used to extract concessions from the strong. Though people die in a terror attack, they are not the actually targets of the operation. A terror attack is deemed successful when the public is so terrorized it is able to pressure the government to appease the terrorists so they (presumably) won’t do it again. Of course they always do ‘do it again’ escalating the terror and increasing the demands with each subsequent attack.

Every time we give in to Islamic terrorism, or fall for the PSYOPS of Islamic jihadist and propagandists, we strengthen and advance Islam. We cannot afford to be doing that, for while Islam might be militarily weak today, there is no guarantee that it will stay that way.

In Mesopotamia, transnational jihadists – Arabs, Africans, Europeans, Chechens, Uighurs, Turkmen and other Asians – already get around in tanks (including US Abrams Tanks) and have sophisticated automatic weapons. They already have access to US-made TOW (Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided) anti-tank missiles; and increasingly to Man-portable air-defense systems (also known as MANPADS or shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles) which can shoot planes out of the sky.

Eventually Islamic powers and their jihadist proxies (including ISIS and al-Qaeda) will be able to conduct crippling cyber-warfare, and will have access long-range missiles, nuclear material and possibly even electro-magnetic pulse weapons.

If the West continues to side with Islam, aide Islam, fund Islam, arm Islam, appease Islam, romanticize Islam and protect Islam, all the while failing to confront the philosophical weakness of Islam – then eventually Islam will no longer be militarily weak and the West will be devoured.

Consequently, it is urgent that we understand exactly what is going on – so we can reject the propaganda, resist the terror, confront the ideology and turn back this battle.